


A Merrier Place

by Avelera



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Yes it's both see chapter 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 06:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3719314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avelera/pseuds/Avelera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone is born with the last words they will hear from their soulmate written on their inner wrist.</p><p>For Bilbo, it reads: If more people valued home over gold, this world would be a merrier place.</p><p>For Thorin, it reads: The eagles are here.</p><p>But there are many other ways it could have gone.</p><p>(Now with an alternative ending.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perkynurples](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perkynurples/gifts).



> Based on a discussion over on Tumblr, with a frankly evil idea that the words written on someone's wrist are their soulmates last words to them, not their first, which opens up all manner of possibilities for missed chances and sudden realizations only when it's too late. 
> 
> However, I've never been a fan of fates set in stone, hence this drabble piece.

Gandalf sat at the edge of the party, enjoying his pipe and the excellent food of his hobbit host. He’d found himself in the area on Belladonna’s birthday, and it would not do to pass by without giving his old friend a visit. They were always lovely occasions, the birthdays of hobbits, finer even than the more elegant revelries of the elves, if he may admit so in the privacy of his thoughts.

However, Gandalf was not expecting a light tug on his robes, and looking quite far down to see Belladonna’s son, Bilbo, standing beside him, clutching a note in his hand.

“Good evening, my dear Bilbo. How may I help you?”

The boy looked rather nervous and proffered the folded paper. On it was written a phrase in a child’s handwriting, as if copied from sight rather than understanding. “Can you read this?” Bilbo said. “To me?”

“But of course,” Gandalf replied, and what he found what seemed to be a bit of poetry. “’If more people valued home over gold, this world would be a merrier place.’ Why, that’s quite lovely, Bilbo. Did you write this?”

“Can’t read yet, I just it saw on my, on my…” the boy said, looking down at his wrist, and there Gandalf too saw the words. “Mama said it’s private, and I shouldn't ask until I’m grown.”

It then dawned on Gandalf what he had just read.

“Are those the last words he's going to say to me? My soulmate?” Bilbo continued, looking up with tear-filled eyes.

“Oh, Bilbo,” Gandalf said sadly, kneeling down in front of the child. “That is indeed true, but it need not be so grim as that. The words may mean any number of things, and these are beautiful ones. What is important is that you must never take them for granted, or give in to despair. The world is not set in stone unless we make it so, which is both a warning and a comfort.”

The boy nodded and took back the note, crumbling it in his hand as he sniffled.

* * *

Words perhaps he should have said to a certain fatalistic dwarf as well when they met in Bree. Gandalf could just see the script on Thorin’s inner wrist, make out the word “eagles” but at the sight of his glance Thorin grimaced, and pulled up the corners of his sleeve. “It means nothing,” he muttered. “Just a bit of poetry.”

It was the mention of poetry that made Gandalf pause, and consider, and hatch the beginnings of a plan.

* * *

When he looked at Bilbo, Gandalf had seen green fields and icy waterfalls, the flicker of fire upon ramparts, and burning pines. He had seen a thousand visions, for in truth no life was set in stone.

Some were better, some worse.

 

 _"_ _I’m certain your fourteenth share is no burden on your decision to stay,” Thorin growled, but seemed uncertain. There was shame in his eyes still at Bilbo’s words, yet Bilbo only shrugged._

_“Nowhere I could really put it anyway. Even were it only for the perils, and no reward at all, I think I would share them with you, Thorin Oakenshield,” Bilbo said. Thorin started and his eyes went wide, his expression hard and suspicious, and then dawning soft._

_“If that is indeed true, Master Baggins, than I owe you more than just my apologies. If more people valued home over gold, this world would be a merrier place,” Thorin said, musing half to himself._

_Bilbo went pale, and opened his mouth to speak again, but a horn blast sounded over the hills._

_Azog had come._

_From there, there was only fire, and a cacophony of voices. Bilbo screamed, trying to get to Thorin, because he knew what was coming and no, no, no it could not happen so soon, not when he had just learned, but the tree was shaking too hard to free himself without tumbling over the cliff, and the orc was raising his sword above Thorin, and Bilbo looked up, and up, and saw wings against the sky._

_“Hold on, Thorin! Thorin, the eagles! The eagles are here!” He cried, and yet the sword flashed down..._

 

And elsewhere…

 

_The ramparts blazed and the Men of Minas Tirith ran from fire to fire, putting them out with desperate cries. Of what note were two smaller figures on the battlements? Bilbo and Thorin looked out over the walls, too aged to take part in the fighting, but still they had come to lend what wisdom they could in the battle against Sauron. Bilbo had almost not made the journey, but their lives together had been long, and both had agreed to do what they must._

_“Thorin look, the eagles are here,” Bilbo said, barely above a whisper, looking out._

_There was a great rumble from Mount Doom, and he clutched at his chest. There was so little time, so little to tell Bilbo all he had meant to him, but Thorin tried nevertheless, holding his husband in his arms as he died..._

 

And again…

 

_The fields of Valinor were emerald. Not merely the green of grass, but shimmering in the sunlight beyond mortal ken. It was the final day before that place would move on beyond the reaches of the world. All elves and creatures of the Valar made the journey there, and Thorin and Bilbo waited with them, their hair and beards snowy white, aged beyond the lifespan of either of their race._

_That morning Bilbo had grumbled when Thorin tried to drag him out to see those great works of Elven jewelcraft, a taste acquired later in his life, and when Bilbo protested that he wished to remain home, Thorin had said those fateful words on Bilbo’s wrist without even knowing. Bilbo had paused, and gone silent, and Thorin had been too caught up to notice when they said nothing more that day, always able as they were to speak to one another with silence._

_He looked up though, and heard Bilbo’s aged and creaking voice as he pointed out over the water, to a shadow coming in over the waves. “Thorin look, the eagles are here,”  Bilbo had said, and indeed they were, their great wings rising and falling as they returned to the Blessed Land, to their home._

_When Thorin realized he wept, but they were not bitter tears. Their lives had been long, and their joy greater than any may ask. They’d had much, when they might have had so very little._

 

Gandalf sees each possibility flicker above Bilbo’s head as they sit side by side next to the battlefield. Watches as they shiver in the air, and shatter, and fade. Until there is only one reality left hovering in the air above him, sliding from present to past. 

There is nothing for it, and so he only offers a pipe because it is too late to offer words. 

 

_Bilbo clutches at Thorin’s hand, leaning down so their faces were inches apart. He has heard the words, and yet in his heart he cannot accept them._

_"Thorin, look, the eagles, the eagles are here…” he whispers, pointing to the sky._

_Thorin heard, and knew. He had known from the minute the eagle rose above Azog’s head, and he had known when he allowed the blade to slide home. Prophecy, after all, could not be outrun. Still, he would have smiled had he been able to, to finally have the answer to that mystery._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have added a second, happier ending to this in Chapter 2, however there is no obligation to read it if you prefer the canonical ending. Chapter 1 stands on its own without it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now with an alternative ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as I love angst, I'm really not a monster, so I thought I'd offer a slightly lighter alternative ending. Can play into either the Minas Tirith or Valinor ending of the previous chapter, though I prefer the latter. It seemed rather in the spirit of the entire exercise that words on the wrist should not be taken as certain doom.

Thorin opened his eyes, and in the breathless quiet of the healer’s tent, he had a moment to reflect on the fact that he had done so at all.

He was in far too much pain for this to be a dream, or his reception in the halls of his fathers. His foot, his head, his chest, even his hair and teeth seemed to ache, and curled up at his elbow Bilbo slept, half in his chair, half leaning onto Thorin’s cot. His mouth was open as he dozed, his face and hands washed but otherwise still wearing the same travel-stained coat he had worn during their days in Erebor, and on the battlefield. Their was dirt and oil still in his hair, so he had not taken the time for a full wash. Thorin wondered how much time had passed.

They had spoken the words. He had seen them, on Bilbo’s inner wrist though it was rude to be caught looking, in Bag End, when he had helped carry Bilbo to his armchair while Gandalf sought to revive him from his faint. He had only made a cursory glance of them at the time, for the words of others were either cryptic or mundane.

He and Bilbo shared the unusual quality of not having some vexingly common phrase as “Farewell” or “I love you” on their inner wrist. He had seen Bilbo’s words, “if more people valued home over gold this world would be a merrier place” and strangely they had slid almost immediately out of his mind, like a fish ducking back into deeper waters. He had not even remembered them long enough to muse on their content, like a cautionary tale whispered back to him by his later self, for all the good it would have done against the dragon sickness.

Had some part of his mind stuck upon them, so that his fading consciousness had recalled them from the hidden depths of memory? Were they even of significance, marking Bilbo as his soulmate, if they were no longer the last words spoken to one another?

 _The eagles are here,_  it said in angular Khuzdul on his own wrist. They were the very words Bilbo had spoken to him as the world went dark around the edges and he had tried to keep his eyes open, fixed on Bilbo’s face, as the last image to take with him into the halls. He had known, and his heart had swelled with the knowledge, both relief and grief. So, they had at least found one another, more than many could say, before it was too late. He wished he could assure Bilbo that what time they had together had been a bright spot in his life, for all that they were robbed of more. The words had been spoken, and fate could not be outrun.

“You quite frightened the life out of me back there, I’ll have you know.”

Thorin looked down, and saw Bilbo blinking the sleep from his eyes, awakened by Thorin’s stirring. His head was cradled his arms until he sat up straight, stretching his arms back over his head and sighing at a gratifying popping sound in his spine. Then he saw Thorin looking at his wrist, and his gaze slipped reflexively to his own. 

“Whatever possessed you to read off my wrist at a time like that, I’ll never know. Or even how you saw it. It was a very cruel joke, Thorin, and I must say I’m rather cross with you for having me on like that.”

Thorin stared uncomprehending, until it dawned on him what Bilbo meant. “But I did not.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Thorin shook his head slowly. “It was no joke, or jest at your expense. Only words spoken from the heart. I would not dishonor you with anything less than honesty, Bilbo.”

Bilbo swallowed, then gave a nervous, reedy laugh. “So I suppose you’re saying you just… happened to say exactly the words on my wrist, completely out of your head, while you lay at death’s door?”

Thorin nodded.

“And on your oath, it was not your intention to quite stop my heart, first that you might be my… my…. Well, and then that it might be the last I heard from you.”

“On my oath,” Thorin intoned. “I would not summon such words even had I recalled them, only to cause you grief, no more than I hope you had intentionally done to me.”

“Intentionally…what?” Bilbo said, eyes widening as he from Thorin’s face to his wrist.

Thorin proffered his wrist. Or tried to, the bandages wrapped shoulder to hip limited his movements, and his muscles protested even the slightest shift in position. “Can you read this?”

Bilbo squinted, and then shook his head. “The letters, yes, but not the meaning. I assume it’s dwarvish?”

“’The eagles are here,’” Thorin read softly, tracing his thumb over each word as he read it. “I have read it every day of my life, and did not know its meaning until that moment. I thought, after the Goblin Tunnels that it was upon me, my doom, but no one spoke. When the eagles flew above our heads in the battle, I knew my death had come.”

“But…” Bilbo said. “Thorin, this could mean any  _number_  of things. Everyone knows you should not do something rash to prompt the words, they will happen in their own time.”

Thorin went quiet. “We… do not have that saying among my people.”

Come to think of it, there was some wisdom in that, for if the words were prompted might it not make them false? And if Bilbo had spoken the words to him, and he had spoken the ones on Bilbo’s wrist in return, and yet both of them were still alive and speaking to one another…

“Thorin,” Bilbo said. All nervousness and hesitation had left him and he looked at Thorin intently. “Did you do something very rash up there, besides take on Azog alone, yet again, rather than seek the rest of us for help?”

“The eagles,” Thorin insisted. “It was a clear sign, Bilbo. When I saw them, I knew. The end had come, my best option was only to be sure Azog was destroyed as well. Had I not let him wound me, he might have…”

“ _Let_   _him_  wound you?” Bilbo snapped.

Thorin winced. It had all made a great deal of sense at the time. “Even as I pursued him under the ice, I knew it could not be so simple. He would not leave my line in peace until death took him. _My_ death was the only bait he would seize.”

“You let him wound you… you— _you_!” Bilbo began sputtering, gone red faced and wild eyed. “Thorin Oakenshield, are you telling me you let Azog wound you because you saw  _eagles_?” he shrieked, jabbing his finger at the inscription on Thorin’s wrist, incidentally at the wrong word.

“The meaning was clear…” Thorin said helplessly.

“The meaning could be anything, you numbskull!” Bilbo said. He was on his feet now, hands clenched to fists at his side. “For example, I could say 'the eagles are coming,' and have a  _stroke_ , which it very much feels like I'm about to have right now!”

Thorin jolted in alarm, sitting straighter, but when Bilbo gave no indication that said stroke was forthcoming he continued weakly. “But the chances of that are…”

“More and more likely, I should think, the longer we spend in each other’s company! Heavens above, Thorin, we’ve already seen the eagles  _twice_ , you knew this, and you truly thought this was a clear sign of your doom?”

Thorin stared, neither nodding nor shaking his head, because to do either seemed an invitation for a swift death. “Perhaps I was mistaken?” he hazarded.

“ _Perhaps_?”  

“I’m very sorry?” Thorin said, not really sure how they had gotten on the subject of apologizing for his own death, or in this case, not dying in such a way that would prove he was right.

“We are not through with this conversation, you daft, fatalistic old dwarf! I intend to bring this up every time you do something foolish until we are both extremely old and gray, if only to prove to you that there is no reason whatsoever to take these at face value!” Bilbo said, waving his wrist in front of Thorin’s face.

Thorin lit up. “So you will stay?”

“At this rate, I should think I’ve earned the exclusive right to kill you myself, Thorin Oakenshield, so yes I will be staying until you are entirely sick of me!”

“You know, this could mean that we’re not in fact soulmates.”

“Oh, pull the other one,” Bilbo scoffed, then gave Thorin a light smack on the tip of his nose, which was probably the only uninjured part of him.

“Ow,” Thorin replied, more out of surprise than pain.

“It’s the least you deserve,” Bilbo fumed. He then resolutely hopped on the bed, and lifted Thorin’s arm to snuggle under it, causing quite a bit more discomfort than the swat had. Thorin looked down at his hobbit questioningly.

“I’m making sure you don’t do anything stupid,” Bilbo said, pressing his face against Thorin’s unwounded shoulder. “I will be staying right here until I can be sure you’re not going to go running off again, this time over a cliff most likely.”

“You know, Master Burglar, if more of us valued home over gold…” Thorin winced, grinning as he felt the light jab of an elbow into his ribs.

“Don’t you dare!” 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this piece, please consider leaving a comment, and also come check me out on Tumblr! (URL: Avelera)


End file.
